


Promise Me

by DramaticDreamer



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 21:49:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15694047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DramaticDreamer/pseuds/DramaticDreamer
Summary: It wasn't supposed to end like this. How could she say goodbye now? When there was so much left for them to do.





	Promise Me

**Author's Note:**

> Just wanted to quickly say that I'm sorry for this. Angst tends to be my go to, so you probably won't catch me writing a ton of happy endings. 
> 
> This takes places post the Carmilla movie, please bear with me if any details are wrong because I only saw it once when it first came out. 
> 
> Any support or suggestions for improvement are highly appreciated <3
> 
> I do not own Carmilla or any of its characters.

_Maybe…maybe life isn’t fair. Maybe I was never meant to do all that I wanted._

The sun beat heavily on the somber procession, sweat glistening her brow. It was unrelenting, as if the universe were unable to give her a break for just one day. A tiny hand was holding hers, a toddler stumbling along, looking more confused than anything. She didn’t expect him to understand. How could he? He was only two after all.

A grassy hill overlooked them. They stopped at the top. There was nothing but silence, and the soft whimpering of those around her. She stayed silent, unmoving. She couldn’t bear for them to see her this weak. In front of her, Mel and Kirsch were digging a hole. It was as if everyone were transfixed by the repetitive motion for several beats, until the tiny voice next to her spoke, drawing the attention of the crowd.

“Momma?” He asked, “Can I dig too?”

There was an echoing chuckle through those gathered, though it sounded hollow to her ears. She scooped him up anyways with a comforting smile. “Not this time cupcake.” She murmured, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. She wasn’t much for affection, but when it came to their…to _her_ son she always had a soft spot.

It was a trait he shared with his other mother.

_There’s no magical cure this time. Don’t beat yourself up over this, we’ve done all we could._

“Carmilla?” Her attention was brought back by the concerned voice of Perry, “Let me take him…its time.” She reached out her arms, but the brunette was quick to step back, holding the child tighter in her arms.

“No. He deserves to see her one last time.” She ignored the grimace of the crowd. It mattered little to her what they thought, a child might not be able to understand death, but to rob him of this final moment would only be cruel.

Her attention turned to the boy, cupping his cheek gently. “Danny, we’re going to see Mommy okay?” She explained softly, her heart breaking at the light that gathered in his eyes, but before he could speak, she put a finger over his lips. “Shh, remember what I told you little creampuff, Mommy isn’t here anymore, so we’re going to say goodbye to her.”

Her voice cracked, opening up a chasm of raw, unbridled pain that threatened to swallow her whole. Tears welled up in her eyes, but she pushed them away. For the sake of her boy she needed to be strong.

“I don’t wanna say goodbye.” He whimpered, and Carmilla could see the tears that started to form in tiny eyes, and she pressed a kiss to his forehead, swallowing her grief.

“Neither do I sweetheart, but sometimes…sometimes we don’t get a choice.” She shook her head, and drew towards the open casket, sucking in a sharp breath at the lifeless body that lay there. She always thought there was beauty in death. She lived in it for centuries. It was something she lost a fear of, even as mortality faced her for the second time, none of it seemed to matter to her because she was always so comforted in it, like a safety blanket. She was dead, so how could anything hurt her?

But now. It was so different now. The lifeless figure lying in that casket looked anything but beautiful. She looked alone…a shadow of the woman she loved. Her skin was pulled tight against her bones, and even closed, her eyes looked hollow. Bony fingers were folded on her chest, and Carmilla had a brief memory to laying her head right there, purring as she listened to the soft heartbeat she found so much comfort in.

That was gone now. There was no breath, no body, no life. She couldn’t understand how someone so full of it had lost every trace. It was haunting to see her this way.

Danny seemed to pick up on her grief, his little hands wrapped tightly around her neck, staring at his mother, the spunky little brunette who always made him cat shaped pancakes in the mornings, who told him bedtime stories of magical creatures and monsters, who would sing a lullaby every night with her full soul, not caring if she was a bit off key because it was anything to see her son smile…

It felt like she had been staked through the heart, the impact deadly, cutting into her soul. Her little boy, _their_ beautiful child was going to grow up without that now. She felt weak, like she was going to pass out, having to grab onto the side of the casket with sharp nails digging into the sides to fight it all back.

And then Danny shifted in her arms, and put a hand on Laura’s. His face shifted, and he suddenly looked so much older than he was, eyes brimming with a deep understanding and acceptance that seemed to shake Carmilla to her core.

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…” He began to sing, and Carmilla broke, bitter tears flowing down her cheeks as she held tight to her boy, putting a hand on his. It was Laura’s favorite. She always teased her for being cheesy and sentimental but right now that song meant _everything._

“You make me happy…when skies are grey.” She joined in as he sung that verse, her body shaking with the effort to keep from falling to her knees and weeping, tears streaming down her cheeks, voice cracking.

The crowd around her seemed to fade away, she could barely hear the anguished sobbing of Hollis Senior, the soft cries of Mel, the stuttered plans Perry was trying to make to brighten this day in any way she could, or even the way Laf shushed her, their voice breaking as they spoke.

No, all that was there was her family. For one, beautiful, painful moment, the world seemed to stop as the sky echoed with her tune.

_“You’ll never know dear, how much I love you.”_ The tears were falling freely now, her body shaking. Laura didn’t even stir. Not even as she bent down to press a tearful kiss to those frail, cold lips one last time.

“Please don’t take…my sunshine away.”

There was no force on this world or the next that could stop the anguished wail that was torn from her throat, the crowd gasping as its power caused them all to stumble backwards. She thought she could be stronger than this…she thought she could do it…but how could she pretend the world was still turning when the woman she would give anything for was dead.

Strong arms wrapped around her, and she very nearly strangled whoever it was, until she was greeted with the same heavy loss she felt in the eyes of Laura’s father, his lower lip quivering as he gently took her son from her arms.

“I’ve got him.” He assured, his voice breaking. Carmilla was helpless to do anything but watch, unaware that she was still crying, unable to feel the tears that flooded her face like a steady stream. There were more arms reaching out to her, and she felt herself flinching from them, but not pulling away, as Laf and Perry held her between them.

There was nothing she hated more than being vulnerable, but this comfort was all it took for her to break, sobbing into Laf’s chest, as Perry’s gentle hand rubbed her back. She could hear that they were crying too. The grief surrounding her was almost unbearable.

Kirsch was the first to speak. Despite never really losing his frat boy attitude, even as he aged, his words weighed heavy with sadness, mourning the loss of his friend to its fullest extent.

Perry went next, though she broke midway through, upon recounting how Laura had beat death up against a god before, but it was something as small in comparison that defeated her. Laf had to break Carmilla’s death grip on them to usher their friend off the stand. Upon losing that balance she simply fell to her knees, not listening to anything the crowd was saying, voices becoming like static in her head until it was her turn to speak.

_I love you Carm. I’m not scared. Please, I want you…and Danny, to really live without me. Don’t waste time on mourning._

She was numb as she walked up to the wobbly wooden podium. Numb as she pulled the wrinkled piece of paper from her pocket, squinting at the smudged words for a few moments before throwing it away completely.

A beat. A deep breath. And then she spoke.

“Laura is, and always will be, the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” Her voice was shaky, but clear, grief almost palatable as she spoke. “Every new moment I spent with her, became the best of my life. Even when we fought, _nothing_ could compare to how she made me feel like I was whole. For all my centuries, there was nobody who could do that for me, in life, or in death.”

She paused, glancing at the still open casket. “It will always be unfair that she was stolen, just twenty-eight years old. I have lived that amount of time in the blink of an eye, and yet the nine years I spent with her seemed to last forever.”

_In death, undeath…or whatever you want to call it, I will always be here with you. In some weird, magical, hopefully not god-involving way._

“I always worried she would get herself killed with her antics, but I don’t think anyone could have predicted that something like _cancer_ would kill Laura Hollis. I’m sure all of us expected some grand heroic gesture…like taking on a god…or a dragon…or who knows what else. Surely that’s the death that’s suited for a fairy-tale hero.”

She clenched her jaw, swallowing back a choked sob. “Laura always liked to believe in the concept of good and evil. She never lost that. It changed, sure, but there was always an air of goodness to her that was enough to turn even a cold, relentless vampire like me into a doting wife…with a son that she loves.”

“And I wish…god do I wish that life could _be_ that fairy tale. That I would grow old with her, and we could watch our children and grandchildren take on the world. But it doesn’t. There’s never an easy way. There’s never a guarantee of happiness. Life is unpredictable, and its messy, and it takes from those who just want to live it…but if Laura Hollis taught me one thing…its that its beautiful.”

She had to pause again, wiping the tears from her eyes, eyeliner smudging across her face, not that she cared. “Laura made life beautiful. She took even the darkest moments and filled everyone around her with hope. She rallied an entire school against an evil goddess mascaraing as a Dean and _won._ She touched the lives of so many students with her freely given love of the world she lived in. Hell, she even made light of her chemo sessions, bringing a little bit of laughter to everyone around her even as her body tore her apart.”

“Laura was…and will always be…the most selfless woman I will meet. Selfless, determined, stubborn, and beautiful. I don’t know how I got so lucky to call this beautiful soul my wife, but I will _never_ regret a single moment I spent with her. And even if I don’t know that the hell I’m doing now I’m never going to stop trying because god, that was all Laura wanted from me. From all of us. Laura was a light that we can’t let stop burning…because she _deserves_ to have us live on. She deserves to be able to watch her son grow, to see her friends live their lives, from wherever she may be. Because if I know _anything_ about my wife, its that even at the face of death herself, she would do anything to make things right for those she loves.”

_Promise me you’ll be okay without me Carm. Promise me our story will go on, even when I’m gone._

“I promise you Laura. This isn’t the end. Our life doesn’t stop here.”

_“I promise.”_


End file.
